I don’t know what’s provocative about my work. I’m painting things that are absolutely ordinary, like a naked human or a house pet. Where’s the problem? What’s provocative about these things? If I were painting a bunch of hanged people, people wouldn’t be interested. But a pet, yes a pet, is apparently provocative. – MARTIN EDER for I Love You Magazine

Born in 1968 in Augsburg, the German artist, musician and photographer MARTIN EDER is a lapsed Conceptualist who enjoys working with his hands alternating layers of sincerity, irony and fantasy. At first glance, his works look provocative but the more you see of them, the more they seem to relate to normality, to life around us in all its ambiguity, its inscrutable differences in value, its heterogeneity and simplicity. All this is formed around the chimeras of his imagination, and this makes his work strangely fascinating.

He has a feel for the space between photography, thrift-store painting, pinup-girl posters and old-school punk nihilism. And he’s a great technician. But combining images of racy young things with cute animals is blatant to the point of banality and gives you little more than tinsel to think about. (This was done far better 20 years ago by painter WALTER ROBINSON.) Mostly, EDER‘s work is so gaudy and brazen that it brings to mind disavowed German neo-Expressionists like HELMUT MIDDENDORF and RAINER FETTING. – JERRY SALTZ via artnet